March 13, 2010

We all kept imagining a sea lion in our cockpit during the night, but luckily it never came. It seems that hanging the towels as a barrier worked. What we did find in the morning was a bunch of short black hairs smeared where he had slept and dropped wherever it had waddled after we had scared him last night. But, we had no time to clean up, our agent Bolivar (who had handled our Autografo which authorizes our boat to be in the Galapagos) came to take us to immigration. We all quickly climbed into the water taxi in the rain to find out we didn't have to go to immigration at all.

After arriving at the dock thoroughly wet because we had stopped to pick up two other cruisers going to immigration, we took a taxi to the fruit/vegetable market where we found the usual choices of tomatoes, potatoes, yucca, green beans, and onions. One vendor had refrigerated broccoli, cauliflower and lettuce. There were many live chickens standing around, but we decided that we didn't need that fresh a chicken so we bought half a chicken which weighed 6 pounds; this was fresh enough!

In the afternoon, we visited the Interpretation Center, a modern structure just outside of town, where we learned from visual displays the formation of the Galapagos Islands, its history and its environmental concerns. There were nice walk ways that led up to Frigate Hill or down to a sandy beach where there were body surfers in the water and seals lounging on the beach. We walked back to town. The enticement that we would walk by the best ice cream place on the island encouraged Steve to make the trek. And, yes, the ice cream was pretty good, topped with a large chocolate dipped cookie. Unfortunately, the ice cream calories far outweighed calories burned on the walk.

Our cruising friends who are carrying some supplies for us from Panama City wrote to tell us that because of a forecast of windless days, they won't be leaving Panama City for over a week. This saddens us because we had hoped to spend some time with them. Now we hope that they will catch up with us at Isla Isabella, our last stop in the Galapagos Islands. Most boats arriving here, the main entry to the Galapagos Islands, are Europeans coming through the Panama Canal, headed to the South Pacific. Lots of Swiss, French and German flags.